


Returning

by LadyLuckDoubt



Category: Gyakuten Saiban | Ace Attorney
Genre: Angst, Friendship/Love, M/M, Phoenix Wright Kink Meme, Unrequited Crush
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-20
Updated: 2011-04-20
Packaged: 2017-10-18 10:14:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,491
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/187815
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyLuckDoubt/pseuds/LadyLuckDoubt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Maya has worked with Nick for years, they've been through so many things together and so many trials and tribulations. And then she realises that she's fallen in love with him. And as if things couldn't get more awkward, he's in love with Edgeworth.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Returning

**Author's Note:**

> _You know how you see a lot of prompts with Phoenix and Edgeworth coming out as a couple and Maya's totally supporting and happy for them? I want to see a fic where she finds out that Phoenix and Edgeworth are together and she's CRUSHED. Not because she's got a problem with gay relationships, but because she's totally in love with Nick._
> 
>  _Anything goes beyond that (hell, you can even have Nick end up with Maya or something if you want) but please no bitchy!Pearl, if it can be helped._
> 
> Again, from the Kink Meme, but there was something so brutally ordinary and human about this prompt: it's the sort of thing people do, and I always felt like Maya had something of a rather naive and friendly crush on an oblivious and uninterested Phoenix in-game.

Nick's seemed happier lately, and it breaks my heart.

And I feel like a horrible person for it.

It's selfish and hypocritical of me-- there I was as we left Hazakura Temple, after the wave of destruction which ripped through all out lives came to a staggering halt, telling Nick about staying strong in the face of adversity for Pearl's sake. I crawled from the wreck, alive, horrified, scared by what I'd become without my say-so, but what mattered to me in the moments afterwards was my cousin.

Perhaps I was distracting myself with something more visible and immediate than how the events had affected me: Pearl was little, she was vulnerable; in the space of a few days, one of her cousins had returned from the dead, the other was reduced to a mess and an accomplice to murder, and her mother, like mine, was gone. 

  
And she was only a little kid. I kept telling myself that as it happened, all this was new for her; she'd stayed in Kurain and away from the nastiness of the big city and real world grown-up problems; murders and politics and corruption were things she'd never had to consider.

Of course, I hadn't, either, until sis asked me to come down to the city; and even now, I wonder if somehow I'd not gone, if I'd stayed back in Kurain, if I hadn't been so stupidly excited to see her, to see the city, to have some burgers-- maybe things wouldn't have happened the way they did. 

But things happen the way they do, and all we can do is pick up the pieces, sort through them and try to continue on and make what we can of our lives. Mia would have wanted that.

  


The Hazakura events changed me. I'd always thought up until then that Mia's murder did, that suddenly I was on my own and an adult, that I'd lost my sister and could pretty much shoulder anything, but what happened in the mountains gave me something else: an understanding of how dangerous my ability is, how out of control it can really be. And that terrified me. And it still does. 

  
Immediately after the trial had come to an end, I went back to the office. I knew it would be a good idea; I could distract myself further, throw myself into something beyond my identity as Maya Fey, heiress to the figurative throne at Kurain. In the office, I could be useful, I could help Nick, my... that's where it became complicated. 

 

  
I'd always loved Nick, from the moment I met him. Initially, he was a distant white knight figure, the one person willing to put his neck on the line from me when the whole world, it seemed, believed that I'd killed Mia. He was there for me in my grief afterwards; the two of us had a bond; we both knew and loved her, she was a big sister figure to the both of us. In the weeks after her death, he'd find little things around the office which had belonged to her, and he'd give them to me, saying she'd have probably wanted me to have them; he'd listen when I cried, he'd offer me a hug if I needed it, and he knew when I needed my space. 

Nick had been strong for me, as I wanted to be strong for Pearl. 

 

Over the years, we helped one another out; and Nick-- well, Nick was always the type of guy who'd go out of his way for me and offer me help with anything-- he'd pick up the tab if I'd suggested we go out for burgers, he'd buy me lunch at the noodle stand down the road, groaning about the amount I was costing him but still smiling and doing it anyway. 

I wondered-- and hoped-- if Nick actually loved me in the way that I realised I was falling in love with him. 

 

It wasn't just the kindness or the burgers, it was the little things, it was the way his eyes would light up when he'd found something funny on the internet which he'd want to show me, it was the way he'd bring in the paper if there was a special article on the Steel Samurai. It was the way I could twist his arm and get him to do things, to sit and watch the show which he grew to like-- and I wondered if that was for my benefit, too-- even though he'd complain about it or ask how old I was again.

We had the comfortable, aromantic kind of relationship that blossoms into love at some point in the movies and in real life. Maybe, I'd assumed, it would when I was an adult, perhaps he was waiting for me to get older and settle, to make sure that I was making the right choice in wanting to be with him. Maybe he was scared of rejection--  _oh, Nick_ \-- because he thought I didn't like guys like him, that maybe I wanted a superhero or a  _glamourous_  lawyer-- someone like Mr. Edgeworth or Prosecutor Godot. What Nick never realised was that I'd never reject him, that what he had with me would remain the same, that we could be friends and lovers, that maybe we already were but we hadn't realised it; that in amongst all this mess, we knew one another better than anyone else did.

I'd wait, I told myself. I'd wait until we'd gotten over what had happened at Hazakura, I'd let the silences become the old goofy conversation about TV shows and him making good-natured cracks about my clothing and my ability to channel the dead.

  


* * *

  
I remember feeling funny when he asked me, one afternoon, out of the blue-- "Maya-- what do you think of Miles Edgeworth?" 

 _Miles_. He'd used his  _first name_. Up until then, Edgeworth had been  _Edgeworth_ , a complicated figure, the boy Nick had been at school with who'd had his life messed up and who'd become a prosecutor as a result of it. Edgeworth wasn't like Nick-- he wasn't warm and goofy, there was something uptight and quietly  _angry_  about him, something almost frightening. We didn't dislike him, but he was a common enemy, he was the prosecution who could sometimes turn things about in our favour. He was too proper, too serious, not really  _like us_ , someone who remained in the distance where he belonged.

"I think he's a bit of a grouch," I'd said. Nick had ignored or wasn't mentioning the fact that I was eating a bag of potato chips by the front desk, something he'd said looked a bit unprofessional if clients showed up. I liked that he would let me get away with little things like that. 

"Perhaps he is on the outside..." He trailed off in a vague sort of way, like he was preoccupied. "He's getting better," he'd said.

"Every now and then I just want to  _poke_  him or tickle him or something," I'd said. "Just to let him know that he's alive and he shouldn't take the world so seriously."

"You goofball." He'd said it so affectionately that it was hard not to smile. 

I was a goofball, and Nick could admit to that, and still like me. 

Maybe guys like Edgeworth wouldn't, but that didn't matter, because I had Nick.

And that was all I wanted.

  


* * *

  
We'd go our for dinner sometimes, and it was like one of those comfortable routines you develop over time; sometimes it would be dinner and a movie if anything good was on; he'd walk me back to my apartment and we'd say goodnight. We'd talk about the city around us; he'd point out little landmarks in his life--  _That's the cafe your sister used to buy us breakfast from some mornings, There's the florist she used to go to when she wanted some flowers around the office_.

I noted the tattoo parlour which had moved into a vacant shop, formerly a hairdressing salon. "Ever thought about getting a tattoo, Nick?"

He winced. "I don't like needles," he'd said, and he made that face that reduced me to a stupid grin.

"I'm sure they don't hurt  _that_  much," I'd replied with a smile. "And some of them look nice... that heart over there is quite cute."

"You are  _not_  getting a tattoo, Maya."

I crossed my arms and pouted at him. "Why not?"

"Because--" He looked awkward, trying to explain himself--  _Because I don't like girls with tattoos..._  was what I'd been expecting to hear.

 

 

I waited. The moment seemed to last forever; there was tension and silence, like we were heading towards something.

"Because your cousin would kill me if she knew you got a tattoo while I was looking out for you-- and what about Pearl? Right now you're her  _world_ , Maya. How would you feel if  _she_  wanted a tattoo because her big cousin has one?"

I hadn't been expecting him to say that, but nodded; being typical Nick, his logic was good. 

"Even if I got one somewhere...  _private_?" Perhaps I was flirting. A little.

"I don't want to know." And he chuckled, and we were back to goofing around again, Phoenix and Maya, the odd couple who could never quite get it together. He'd defused the tension, and I was glad.

"Are we going to see a movie next week?" I asked him as we continued walking down the footpath.

"Mmmm...." He trailed off then, vague, looking up at the sky. "Maybe. Depends."

"Depends?  _From the Deep_  comes out next week-- that awful shark movie-- you know I can't see horror movies by myself, Nick!" 

"Oh..." And he went vague again, and smiled slightly. "It just depends on how much money I have, and whether or not I'm busy."

I laughed. "Nick, the two of us are  _never_  busy on a Friday night. Unless we're busy-- with one another." 

Perhaps that was an opening, too, and he laughed nervously, rubbing the back of his neck in that way that means  _I'm screwed and I don't know what to say_.

"Maybe we could change that," he said gently. 

"Nick, you're too busy with work for a relationship, and as for me--" I laughed self-depreciatively-- "The only person who's asked me out lately is  _Larry_. And even then he lost interest in me after Iris showed up..."

And that's when he rested his hand on my shoulder. "You'll find someone," he said. "You always do when you're not looking." 

I always wondered how he could fail to see that I'd already found it.

 

 

I always wondered how I'd tell him, if it would be left up to  _me_  to tell him, because he sometimes seemed so dopey and oblivious that I realised after that Thursday evening it would  _have_  to be me doing the telling. 

Because it doesn't get much more awkward than "What would you think if I got a tattoo in a  _private place_  and then  _showed you_ , Nick?" 

Endearing as that  _was_ \-- and it was in a way because at least you know Nick isn't one of those guys who just uses girls for sex like I think Larry might-- it was also incredibly frustrating.

 

 

  
Monday morning, it came together so perfectly, it seemed-- I'd been joking with him about his messy hair and the fact that he seemed to be wearing new cologne-- he just didn't  _smell_  like Nick any more when I reached over towards him to hand him some old files that probably needed archiving-- who was he trying to impress--?

"Maya," he said quietly, "We need to have a talk."

And that was when I expected it; there was another of those blank spaces, an awkward pause which became even moreso, something which would be sorted out and healed up in an instant. I could tell him about how I'd been thinking about maybe going back to Kurain for awhile, that he was welcome to stay, but that I needed to go because Pearl needed to go home, that I'd finally decided that the best way to deal with my issues was to get  _better_  at channelling so I could control things, so I wouldn't ever be possessed as I was last time-- that yes, Nick, I'm growing up, I'm being an adult, and yes-- I'm  _ready_. And...  _I love you_. More than anyth--

I looked at him expectantly, and he sighed, looking embarrassed and tentative. 

"There's something I really should have told you a long time ago but just didn't know how to say--" His voice shuddered--

"It's okay, Nick-- you can tell me anything--  _I promise_."

  


* * *

  
"I don't know how to say this." He's rubbing the back of his neck again. "I always thought it was obvious to everyone, but apparently not-- but I suppose the whole chapter with my involvement with Dollie might have--" He's rubbing his neck more furiously now.

"Nick, you're going to leave a big red mark on your neck if you keep rubbing it like that," I tell him. But he doesn't smile at me, he just looks ahead of him, troubled. 

"I've never been good at just  _telling people_." 

My heart stops for a second; he's about to say-- 

"I love you, Nick." 

"Edgeworth and I are dating." 

It's a bit of a mess that we both say it at the same time.

 

I've blurted it out and he's just said it, not quite looking at me, it's all happened at once and suddenly there's a confused moment where we realise what we've both said--

"You're not  _gay_ \--"

"I'm so sorry..." He turns his head to the side and looks as miserable as I'm feeling right now. There's another pause from both of us and I realise my throat's dry in that way that your throat goes dry before you start crying. I'm not about to cry. I'm  _strong_. I've not cried about so much and now this is threatening all that?

He speaks before I do. "I never knew, Maya."

"You're always oblivious about ...stuff."

He chuckles softly and sadly to himself. "He said exactly the same thing." A snort of derision from a man obviously preoccupied. "As though _he's_ any better."

I'm not sure if I want answers or if I don't. Is it worse to know or not know? The little kid in me wants the world to be wrapped up in zany stories and superheroes and lighthearted friendship with a possibility of going somewhere else and people unbroken and untarnished. But since Mia was killed, I've not been a kid; I've seen the way the world works and realised that people are complex. Nick would want the truth, so I'm going to hear it, maybe I need it, maybe it will bring me some-- god, I don't want to think about the reality of this right now-- closure. 

"Why didn't you tell me?"

He rubs the back of his neck again and glimpses down at the desktop and then up at me and then over those stupid outdated files. 

"I still don't know how people are going to react when I do," he says. "It's easier to not say anything and suspect that they know."

"What about Dahlia?" If he's gay, he wouldn't have dated her, would he?

"I saw her for a couple of months-- it was--" He sighs again. "I was young then. And I'd grown up in a house where it was  _expected_  that I date girls. I was quite innocently in love with her." He looks around, not quite meeting my eyes. "I didn't really understand what love was when I was that age, and Dollie was... fairly low maintainence." The lines on his forehead wrinkle. "Well, taking into account that she was someone else, that she tried to kill me and that she was virtually impossible to talk to--" He stops himself, making that weird little guilty face that he makes when he knows he's rambling. "I've known for a long time, Maya. I just... thought everyone else knew."

"Larry doesn't know," I insisted. "Remember when he tried to take you out to that strip club for your birthday?"

I'd thought Nick had declined the offer because he wasn't the type of guy to go looking at naked women like that. Or because he didn't want to be left responsible for a drunk Larry.

"What Larry Butz doesn't know would fill a library," he says.

"Have you told him?"

The look he gives me suggests that the answer is no. "And I don't plan on telling him, either-- the last thing I need is Larry being freaked out, Larry trying to make me interested in women, or Larry coming up with some other harebrained scheme which makes everyone want to jump off a cliff." 

I nod. He's right. And there's another awkward silence which hangs between us then. My heart's in my throat, my mind's racing towards the future.  _Nick..._  And once again, I'm dealing with the immediate. This is hard for him, I can tell. Nick's pain is like Pearl's, heavier and more immediately noticeable than my own. He's  _happy._  I  _think_.

"I can understand that," I tell him softly. My teeth feel like they should be chattering, and I don't know what to say. I'm running on autodrive, trying to fill the void with questions-- "What--  _happened_?" 

He looks at me strangely. "I've always been like this, Maya."

"No-- what happened between you and--  _him_." 

Calling him  _Miles_  seems foreign and strange. Calling him  _Edgeworth_  seems too formal.

"We-- I dunno, Maya-- things have been strange between us since after the Powers case." He smiles at me weakly again, his huge blue eyes watery and threatening tears. He's smiling though, like he's glad his secret's off his chest, even though I'm not glad that mine's out in the open. He blinks. "I'm so sorry, Maya-- I never knew you--"

" _Don't worry about it_." I'm betraying myself as I speak to him, I can feel the anger and humiliation in my voice as my fists clench into tiny, angry balls. I'm angry because this wasn't what I expected, because I don't know how to deal with it. I'm not angry with him. Nor Edgeworth, who's ignored him or been so cold to him for so long-- 

 _I wouldn't have put you through all that, Nick..._

He jerks back when he becomes aware of my irritation. 

"Maya..."

Do I want to hear the truth? I do. I'm being childish-- I've lived through worse. The fact that Nick was there to support me through it all doesn't occur to me at that moment-- " _Tell me_ ," I tell him. "You've never talked about this before-- you've never told me  _anything_. You seem to act like I'm a--" my teeth are gritted as I force the word out-- " _kid_." 

"It's not that," he says. "It's just that-- I'm guarded about some things. I've let people in before... and it hasn't worked out so well."

"And you think that  _he's_  a model of good mental health?"

I didn't expect that to sound so snappy, and he looks at me sadly. His mouth opens and shuts, like he's a sad, dopey-looking goldfish, and then it shuts again. He places a hand over mine. "Maya," he says again, gently. "I'm-- sorry things happened like this." A smile. "But I don't want this to change our friendship--  _or_  our working relationship." 

"Me neither." I feel like a little kid; scared, uncertain for the future-- I'm truly alone. No big sister to talk to about this, no Nick to know the right thing to say, even though-- typical of him-- he's trying. It's not his fault that it won't be enough, that it can't be. 

"Let's go see that shark movie," he says with a warm smile. 

 

 

My heart is breaking but I have to be strong.

 

Someone in a movie, an old movie I watched half-heartedly when I was in the middle of doing something else, stated that if they didn't hurt, they wouldn't be called crushes, that we'd call them something else.

But it wasn't a crush. It  _isn't_  just a crush-- it's love, pure and simple. Love doesn't have to be requited, love just  _is_. Love means the possibility of a broken heart. Iris loved Dahlia, and look what happened. She's in jail because that love was stronger than the law, stronger than everyone else around her. Aunt Morgan might have loved Pearl and did all that she did for her, misguidedly and evilly, but it could still, possibly, be attributed to love. 

Maybe Nick put his neck on the line for Edge-- _Miles_ \-- like he did two years ago for love. Of course, I put my neck out for  _Nick_  during that case, too, and that was for love. 

If I keep thinking about it, I'll keep crying. But maybe I want to cry, for all the people I've loved and lost, for my failures, for my stupidity, for my inability to understand people. 

"Maya." He's sitting at his desk, looking up from the computer screen. 

"What?" 

"Why don't you take the afternoon off?" His voice is so gentle and concerned that I want to start crying some more. Instead, I sniffle, and he throws the box of kleenex from the end of his counter towards me. The corner of the box hits me in the shoulder. Both of us laugh uncertainly. 

"I'm okay, Nick-- I'm just..." Maybe he's right. I don't  _want_  him to be right, I think, stubbornly juvenile as it is. 

"I'm sorry," he says again. I hate the way he keeps saying that, and I want something to distract me. I want to see the reality, I want to be wrenched out of  _this_  weird foggy state where it all seems like a shattered past and not the present world that I'm living in and the future I need to adapt to-- the more reality I see, the more I'm going to get used to the idea. Then Nick and I can go back to things being the way they were, only I can taunt him about dating a stickler like Edgeworth, and he can taunt me about being single or something. And Edgeworth can hang around being frustrated with me and my youthful exuberance or something.

I can't answer his apology. What am I meant to say-- that I'm sorry too? Sorry that he's happy, that he's dating someone, that he's found a person who understands him and makes his world a bit brighter? Or that I'm sorry he's not heterosexual and interested in me-- that I'm sorry he's not a Larry Butz who'll hit on me because I've got breasts and the ability to withstand his presence for more than a fleeting moment?

I don't answer him, and look back to my computer screen instead; when I can't concentrate on organising things around the office, I surf the web-- Nick doesn't mind me doing that-- and for a quarter of an hour, I lose myself in the Steel Samurai Kink Meme.

I can't even muster a smile when someone asks for "Steel Samurai/Nickel Samurai." Funnier for me because I met both of the actors. Will Powers was one of the nicest people Nick's ever worked for. Matt Engarde was a creep, and his house smelt like vinyl and that rusty, rotting sort of smell of red wine. There's something even sillier about the idea of slash between people you know in the flesh.

Nick/Edgeworth.

My brain flickers to the two of them together, and I don't want to, but I can't stop thinking about them like  _that_. It feels wrong and like an invasion of their privacy somehow even though it's all my imagination, grabbing the more interesting scenarios I've remembered from yaoi fanfiction and superimposing Nick and Edgeworth over them. I steal a sideways look at Nick as his phone rings, the Steel Samurai ringtone breaking my chain of thought. Does Nick prefer to be on top? Does Edgeworth like being tied up? Do they orgasm together like they do in yaoi fiction-- why am I thinking about this?

 

I'm snapped back into reality when I hear Nick laugh into the phone and catch another glimpse at him. He looks happier than I've seen him look before, he's grinning though he's trying to look serious. 

" _No_ ," I hear him protest-- " _You_  can drop that case if I get a client-- it's  _your responsibility as a representative the state to not engage in questionable activities..."_

A laugh and a double entendre.

"Conflict of interest," he says. "Though under Californian law-- were you _aware_ that it's not illegal for me to be sleeping with my clients...?" A laugh. "Extenuating circumstances... I would not have slept with Matt Engarde, even if he'd offered-- hey, you're the Samurai fan here--"

At those words he turns to me and catches me, off-guard and clearly listening in. 

"Look--" he says into the mouthpiece, hurriedly-- "I really have to go-- I've got a lot to do around here-- don't say that-- I'm busy-- just like you apparently are on the tax-payer dollar... Look-- I'll see you this evening, _Prosecutor_ _..."_

He clicks the phone off and looks at me, and he's still smiling, boyish and pleased with himself. I can't hate him for this. I can't hate Edgeworth for this. 

But it hurts in a way that nothing else has. It's a different pain to losing Mia, that was understandable, this isn't. This is the realisation of my own selfish childishness and inability to deal with change. This is me cruelly wanting Nick when I know he's not mine and I can't have him. It's tearing me to pieces. 

I smile wistfully for him and decide to take a bathroom break. Nick's peculiar habit of cleaning the toilet until it sparkles occurs to me then, and I wonder pathetically if Edgeworth will ever know about that one and if he'll ever be able to appreciate the little Nick-quirks that I notice and appreciate about him.

Probably not, I think glumly.

 

 

I want to show interest and concern, but things have changed, despite Nick telling me that he didn't want them to. I suppose life changes just happen, relationships between people change whether we want them to or not. 

 _Nick_ , I think sadly,  _I tried_.

It's hard seeing him look so happy, it's hard knowing that suddenly we've gone from being Nick and Maya who take on the world and support one another to Nick and Maya, workmates, one with an embarrassingly stubborn  _crush_ \-- that sounds so childish, doesn't it?-- on the other.

 

 

"Maybe I should go back to Kurain," I tell him quietly one afternoon. I'm not sure if I'm being jealous and put-out-- he's just gotten off the phone and was talking to Mr. Edgeworth again, there was laughter and banter and sarcasm and I was reminded, for a moment, of how he'd playfully tease me when we'd be out and about on an investigation.

It  _hurts_. It hurts being this happy for him and this heartbroken for him; it's like my spirit is split into two. 

Nick looks thoughtful. "Why do you want to do that?" he asks. "Is it because of Edge--?"

 _Yes_ , I want to scream.  _Because he's ruined_ everything.

 

But I don't; I can't say that to him. Immature as I might be having this stupid crush on him, I'm not immature enough to think that everything would go back to normal and that Nick would suddenly fall out of love with him because of me saying something like that. 

It's not fair. None of this is.

I shake my head. "Perhaps I'm just not dealing too well with anything," I admit to him.  _But going back to Kurain would mean having to tell Pearly the truth about Mr. Nick-- and she probably wouldn't handle it that well, either_. In the way that I've tried to shoulder Pearl's heartache, in a way, she's tried to support my crush. Without even realising it. There's a certain bitterness knowing that your little cousin can see the potential for a relationship which you want, and no one else can.

My voice is shakey, and I sigh. Nick gets up from his desk. "C'mon," he says gently. "We'll lock up the office for the afternoon and go grab some burgers, hey, Maya?"

I wish I could just walk away, but I'm falling into it, even though my head is screaming at me in a Franziska-like tone and volume that I'm being foolish, that he's just being  _nice_.

"Isn't Mr. Edgeworth coming back here?" I ask. "Won't you miss him?"

He stands next to me and offers a hug which I barely return, because it hurts, feeling him under my fingertips and smelling that cologne which I know isn't his.

"I can always come back," he says, patting me on the back. "Let's go get the biggest, sloppiest, most cholesterol-level-unfriendly burgers in the neighbourhood." He smiles again; he's being too nice. God, this is awkward; he used to complain about the amount of burgers I ate, and now he's offering them?

"You don't have to be this nice," I tell him quietly. 

"It's all right." He pulls me to him for another hug. "I  _want_  to."

He breaks free of the hug, and I can feel my eyes stinging, threatening tears. No. I'm not going to cry. I'm going to be  _strong_. I'm going to professionally have burgers with Nick and we're going to go back to normal-- he's  _trying_ , at least, I'm not. 

I'm grateful for the distraction and determined to leave the office with a smile on my face. 

  
We walk down the street, a couple, to other eyes. Whether we're a couple of friends or workmates, or courtroom rivals, or anything  _else_  is up to whoever's watching us. We have burgers at Donny's, and we try to make pitiful small talk about nothing. When that gets awkward, Nick asks me seriously-- 

" _Why_  were you talking about going back to Kurain?"

I clear my throat and take a sip of soda. "Maybe I need to go back, in order to heal properly," I tell him. "After what happened up at Hazakura--" And my voice falters there, stuck,  _jammed_ \-- "I learned how dangerous being able to channel the dead really is. You've never accidentally channelled someone-- been possessed by them-- you've never been out of control because of how they've made you feel without you realising it..."

 

Except for when he's faded off and been vague, or he's asked random questions out of the blue like if I think Mr. Edgeworth will ever stop being so snappy and nasty for no reason.

I can feel tears in the back of my eyes, and I take another gulp of soda.

Nick's voice drops to something quiet. "I can't say I understand that, but... I think I understand." He smiles softly at me. "You need to conquer that particular demon in order to stay strong." He sighs. "Especially in your line of work--"

 _Line of work_?

"I'm the assistant manager at Wright and Co Law Offices," I tell him softly. " _That's_  my job."

My hand is rested next to the plate my burger's on, and Nick's hand clasps over the top of it. "You're not serving a life sentence here, kiddo," he says gently. "I meant your work as in your-- spirit channelling...  _stuff_." He sighs "If you need to take some time off, I'm more than happy to let you." A guilty, slightly worried look, like the face he sometimes makes if I've suggested we eat out somewhere-- that  _how the hell am I going to pay for this?_  expression-- graces his face. "I'll even give you paid time off to go back to Kurain if you'd like."

Why the hell is he being so nice?

"You don't need to do that," I tell him. "Nick-- we're-- friends, right. You don't need to feel bad because things have gone weird between us." I'm trying so desperately to keep it under wraps, to hope that I don't start crying. "You've been the best boss I've ever had."

"I think I've been the only one." He smiles weakly, removing his hand. "But I'll take that as a compliment." He looks at me again, his eyes twinkling. "You're a pretty damn good assistant manager, too." 

I don't want to leave, I tell myself. Somehow I'll just get used to this.

 

 

We walk out of the burger joint and the air is cool around us. It's all but silent as we head back towards the office-- I've forgotten to grab my purse, Nick realises that I'm going to need my  _stuff_  either this evening or tomorrow morning-- he sighs when he can see the red sportscar parked out the front, and I then realise that I never knew that Edgeworth drove one.

It's a midlife crisis mobile, I think nastily, wondering if he got it because of his prematurely greying hair and stuffy old-man nature. I suppose the idea of him having affairs with people half his age would be kind of yuck since he's just Nick's age-- twenty-six-- so maybe the car is a good substitute.

I avoid looking at the car and Nick opens the front door. Both of us are glad to get out of the cold and step in.

Mr. Edgeworth, midlife-crisis-motorist, is sitting on the sofa, and there's a cup of tea prepared and sitting up on the front of the counter. He startles when he sees me, blushing slightly, his cheeks matching his suit. 

"Hello, Maya," he says quietly. "I wasn't expecting to see you here-- otherwise I would have made a cup of tea for you as well."

"It's all right-- I was just coming back here to get my purse--"

And it's then that I realise that Nick won't be walking me back to my apartment, that he's here with Mr. Edgeworth, and that staying here, I'm going to have to get used to this kind of thing. It's only fair, I tell myself  _even though it isn't_.

I walk over to my desk, watching over my back as they ignore me and start talking amongst themselves, both painfully focussed on one another. They're talking about...  _work_  and they're making gooey eyes at one another. If not anything else, it makes me completely aware that the way Nick and I interacted before this was not suggestive of romance, that this-- what he's doing now-- is. 

I sneak off to the side to the bathroom; I need to go anyway and I know this one will be cleaner than just about any other toilet I'm likely to encounter. 

Through the thin walls, I can hear murmurs between them--

"No-- I don't feel comfortable here--"

"It's all right-- she knows--"

"I was right, though, wasn't I, Wright?" 

I want to roll my eyes at the fact that Mr. Edgeworth still calls him  _Wright_ , but the moment I've heard Nick mention me, everything's silent as I try to hear more and my breathing stops. 

There's a groan from Nick. "You were," he says. "But--"

" _No_." Mr. Edgeworth sounds his typical grumpy, but for once, I'm grateful. "Wright, it's perfectly  _tacky_  canoodling in an office like a pair of desperate teenagers--" 

God, that was what I'd thought about doing with  _Nick_  sometimes-- it's not  _tacky_ \-- I'm conflicted. 

"--and as you know, I'm a perfectionist. I prefer to do things in the right place and at the right time." He chuckles deviously and I hear Nick ask insistently-- "Well--  _come on_ \--"

"I do believe we're waiting for your assistant."

I've been sitting on the toilet, listening, with my ear pressed up to the wall. Ooops. I stand up quickly, adjusting myself, flushing the button and washing my hands. Maybe the timing looks suspicious, but maybe they won't notice. 

When I step out, they're not noticing; they're both standing up, Mr. Edgeworth is wearing a long, expensive-looking trenchcoat like the one he was wearing up at Hazakura sometimes, and Nick's leaned against him, trying to kiss him. Mr. Edgeworth doesn't look pleased, and I'm not sure if I hate him for refusing Nick like that, or if I'm secretly glad because perhaps I don't want to see them doing this and if Nick doesn't have any self-control, it's good that Edgeworth does.

My footsteps on the floor interrupt them, and Nick's face flushes and he looks at me guiltily. Edgeworth squirms away from him awkwardly.

"Right to go?" Nick asks, and Edgeworth raises an eyebrow. 

"Wright," he says with a groan in the back of his throat, "Please don't tell me you are just  _dismissing_  her from your office as though she's some sort of  _temporary_  staff." He looks at the door. "Not in this weather. Not this late." He sounds vaguely disgusted, as though allowing me to walk home by myself is up there with making out on an office sofa.

"I--" Nick looks embarrassed for a moment, and his mouth opens, he starts rubbing his neck, and his eyes widen.

"For god's sake, you  _told_  me that Miss Fey only lives a few blocks away from here." Edgeworth smiles at me. "Perhaps I could offer to drive you home?" he asks. 

A lift home. In the midlife-crisis-mobile. I feel guilty for thinking of it-- and of him like that, and I feel uncomfortable to be making Nick look so awkward and for making Edgeworth so irritated with him. Then again-- maybe Nick  _likes_  being talked to like that, maybe that was part of Edgeworth's appeal-- 

 _No_. I can deal with this when we're talking about the interpersonal dynamics between the Steel Samurai and the Evil Magistrate, or I could back then when they were both still alive-- but I can't transfer it to Nick and Edgeworth like that. 

Edgeworth is smiling at me slightly, in that way unfamiliar adults try smiling at children when they've had no experience with them. I almost feel sorry for him.

"Miss Fey?" he asks. 

I nod to him. I'm not getting in between him and Nick.

"Would you like a lift home?" 

I'm not sure how to answer and I look at Nick's face. He smiles awkwardly and nods. " _I'd_  say yes," he says jovially-- "It's not like he lets  _anyone_  ride in that car."

Edgeworth gives Nick a scandalised, knowing look, and I wonder then in that moment what  _else_  they've managed to do in that car.

"Thankyou, Mr. Edgeworth." 

"It's my pleasure," he says. And then, as we're walking to the door, he turns to Nick. "If you'd like to make yourself useful," he says. "You may wish to make reservations at the places listed on the cards in your pocket." He smiles.

"But I don't have any--" His hand dives into his pocket and he pulls out a couple of business cards. "Oh.  _I see_." 

It's so beautifully polished and romantic that I'd be sighing and smiling to see it happening to anyone else, but it's annoying me because it's  _Nick_  and it's  _Edgeworth_  who is a grumpy curmudgeon and here he is--

"Are you ready to go?" he asks me.

I nod, and follow him to the door.

  


* * *

  
We don't talk about much on the way down to the car, but when we're sitting in it-- and it doesn't feel so much like a midlife crisis car any more as a luxurious celebrity car, now that I'm sitting in the front seat-- Edgeworth turns to me.

"How have you been?" he asks awkwardly. "After...?" And he's stuck there, because he doesn't know what to say.

"I'm okay," I tell him. He twists the key in the ignition and the engine roars to life.

"I'll admit," he says. "The logic behind me wanting to drive you home was also about me wishing to have a word with you in private." He smiles lopsidedly, awkward, like he does in court when he's been caught off-guard by Nick.

"I know things have been strange between us," he says-- "I think we met when I was trying to have you convicted for your sister's murder-- and things have been strange, Miss Fey, since then." His nose wrinkles. "And now the latest installment is probably the strangest of all of them, especially for all the people who had made assumptions about his sexual preferences and my own, and..." He's going a little bit pink. "Well, yes." He steers the car around a corner, and I nod to him. 

"My apartment block's just up here."

"Okay." There's a sigh off relief in his voice like he's glad this awkward conversation has a limited timeframe left. I feel a little bit sorry for him.

"I'd like us to be able to get along, Miss Fey," he says. "I suppose right now we're the two people closest to him, and we're going to have to get used to one another, regardless. I'd like to let bygones be bygones, and just... hmmm." 

His awkwardness makes me feel sorry for him.

"That's all right," I tell him. "I think I know what you mean." I point out the window. "Mine's that one on the end." 

"Okay." It appears our conversation has died there.

"Thankyou," I tell him once more as the car slows to stopped. "I'll see you...  _later_ , I guess." I open the door from the inside and grab my purse, opening it and looking for my keys. "I hope you and Nick have a great night," I blather on-- "and that he's made those reservations..."

God. I'm trying too hard. My voice is unnaturally perky and upbeat.

"Thankyou," Edgeworth says, a twitch of a smile on his face, something knowing and coy, and making my mind go to places I wish it wouldn't.

  
As he drives away, I realise that I can't quite get used to this, something feels like it's shattered, and it's only made worse by the fact that Mr. Edgeworth is being so  _accommodating_  and so  _nice_. If he was a jerk, I could deal with it and be angry with him for being with Nick. I could convince myself that Nick really deserved someone better. But he's making an effort, he's just driven me home. And there I was earlier, thinking nasty thoughts about him and his flash little car.

I can't help it: I want them to have a great night together but I don't. I want Mr. Edgeworth to be happy but not with Nick, but I want Nick to be happy but... 

I sniffle in the cool night air, and walk up to my apartment. I have to grow up and get used to this, or I have to get out.

So much for being a kid and for childish whimsy; being an adult means putting aside your own selfish and silly wishes for other people. It means dealing with reality. It means growing and looking after yourself. 

I know what I have to do.

 

 

 

 _March 1st, 2019--_

 _Dear Nick;_

 _I'm writing this letter to advise you of my resignation. Having given things some consideration, I have realised that the place for me to be right now is back up in Kurain where I will be able to continue my spiritual training, and to become a stronger person. I can also support my family up there, and Kurain's location makes travelling to the women's prison much easier should I choose to visit family there. I'm still not sure what to do in regards to that-- perhaps some meditation and prayer might bring me the solution._

 _Nick, I'm sorry things went weird towards the end of my time with Wright and Co. I didn't mean to make them go that way, and I'm sorry-- I just wish, sometimes, you'd been able to tell me about Mr. Edgeworth before then-- perhaps things would have been different and a bit less weird. I don't know. I would like to wish the two of you nothing but the very best, and you're both welcome to come up to Kurain village-- I'd really like to see you two, happy._

 _Thankyou for all the burgers, the hugs, the silly comments, for making me laugh at things when I thought I'd run out of laughter, for watching Samurai shows with me, for getting Matt Engarde's autograph before he turned evil, for not noticing when I was eating chips in your office, for not minding when I was surfing the Samurai Kink Meme on the offices' bandwidth, and for being the best boss anyone could ever have._

 _ ~~I love you, Nick~~..._

 _I love you, Nick. Some horrible things have happened in my life, but your being there has made them easier to deal with. Thankyou, and here's me wishing you nothing but the very best._

 _Love,_

 _Maya_


End file.
